Tortiglioni with sausage and fennel seed sauce

A dish for meat lovers who like strong tastes but don’t like spending time in the kitchen. Tortiglioni (or rigatoni, paccheri or other big pasta shape) with quick cooking sausage, fennel seeds and half-ripe DOP ewe’s milk cheese from Sardinia. I say that it’s a fast dish to prepare because the sauce takes 30 minutes although the longer meat sauce is cooked the more balanced and intense the flavours are. Just brown the sausage, add the onion, the tomato concentrate, the tomato, a little wine and let it cook over high heat: it tastes divine and nobody will think that you just whipped it up.

Recommended pasta for this recipe

Armando’s wheat

Tortiglione

Alternatively, you can use

Preparation

Finely chop the onion. Take the sausage out of the skin and chop it coarsely with a knife. Pour the oil in a big frying pan and let it warm, then add the sausage pieces and sauté it over high heat. Add the chopped onion, chilli pepper, fennel seeds and tomato concentrate and let soften for one minute, then add the wine. Let it evaporate, then add the tomato purée, chopped bay leaf, marjoram or thyme, some sugar and salt to taste (but not too much because the sausage is savoury and when the sauce thickens it could taste salty). Let simmer over moderate to high heat for about 30 minutes. If you have more time, cover the pan and let simmer for a longer time. Remember to take the bay leaf and chilli pepper out at the end of cooking. Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water until al dente and drain it. Keep a little of the water the pasta was cooked in. Add the pasta to the pan containing the sauce, a little of the cooking water and grated ewe’s milk cheese. Serve the pasta sprinkled with ewe’s milk cheese and a few fennel seeds.